I worked at Stirling University for 13 years. I was bullied by my manager, Kathy McCabe. I asked her to stop, but the ill treatment continued, and I raised grievances against her. As a result I was dismissed. Stirling University claims to be committed to allowing employees and students to be able to work and study free from bullying, victimisation and discrimination. However, here I provide evidence of the extreme lengths that management takes to protect and support bullies.

Sunday

This is a link to the mp3 file (Selina and Una.mp3) that contains a conversation I had with Selina Gibb and Una Forsyth on 26 February 2010 immediately after my grievance hearing with Kathy McCabe. The transcript of the conversation is on my blog here.

Two months after this conversation took place, Selina was interviewed as part of the disciplinary investigation. She claimed that due to a private conversation she had with me in January that year, she was frightened, nervous and anxious around me. She had lied, claiming that I had gone wild with rage, and that I was red in the face and spitting on her desk.

The conversation begins as I'm about to go home early. Selina and Una Forsyth instigate the conversation by asking me why I'm going home. The both lied, claiming that neither of them got on with me. If I didn't get on with someone, I wouldn't talk to them as they are about to leave. I would just let them leave.

You will note that the volume of my voice lowers as I go over to them, and away from the exit. This was because we shared a room with about eleven colleagues. The private conversation I had with Selina in January 2010 also took place as I was about to leave the room, and again it was Selina who instigated it. However, that day I didn't move towards Selina because we were the only two people in the room at the time. So her claim that I was spitting on her desk in anger was false because I was nowhere near her desk. In fact, at one point, she had stood up from her desk to come over and stand beside me. She was giving the appearance of being genuinely concerned for my health. I now know that to be false.

In this February conversation, just as in the January one, there is no sign of anger from me; no going wild; no spitting with rage. Yet we are discussing my grievance with Kathy McCabe which was the subject that Selina alleged caused me to go wild.

In this conversation, Una raises a work issue which I begin to answer, when Selina interrupts to make jokes about my 'dancing shoes'. Hardly the behaviour of someone who is anxious and nervous around me.

The reason the conversation is being recorded is because I had been recording the grievance hearing, and hadn't switched off my recorder.

Mark Toole, who dismissed me, says he believes Selina's unsubstantiated claims. Yet he criticised me because Ruth had sent him a letter in which she stated she had seen disciplinary investigator, Graham Millar, with his arm around Una Forsyth at works nights out. Mark says that Ruth's claims are unsubstantiated despite the fact that Graham did this in the presence of more than a dozen work colleagues, and on more than one occasion. He didn't even bother to ask Graham if it was true or not, such was his desire to substantiate Ruth's claims. Mark claims that Ruth made false claims in collusion with me because she was my partner, but he says he could not imagine that work colleagues would collude with each other.

Ruth's letter also stated that David Black had told her that Jackie O'Neil had shouted angrily at me just before I was suspended. Again, Mark says that he believed Ruth had made this up. David Black has confirmed it, though, so maybe Mark should have asked David before dismissing me. Isn't that what you would expect from someone who says they are going to carry out a thorough investigation? I had pleaded with him to speak to David, but my pleas were ignored. He obviously knew I was telling the truth. Why on earth would I lie about an incident that was witnessed by a dozen colleagues. Mark says he believed Jackie who denied shouting at me, even though she was unwilling to attend a meeting with me and Mark to discuss the incident. Despite knowing that I shared an office with 13 colleagues, Mark says he thought that only David and Jackie and I were present. That's why nobody else was asked about it, he said.